


Dig, Lazarus, Dig

by Tabi_essentially



Series: Wartime verse [3]
Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Buried Alive, Entomophobia, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Kink Meme, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-16
Updated: 2012-02-16
Packaged: 2017-10-31 06:39:52
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,321
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/341075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabi_essentially/pseuds/Tabi_essentially
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From this prompt on the kink meme: <i>BAMF!Arthur is nonetheless caught by some bad guys or other, tormented and finally buried alive. Eames only knows he's gone at first, but his own research turns up Arthur's location. He gets there right in time, saves him, cue massive h/c of every imaginable level. Lay it on thick, I want Eames to be panicking, Arthur to be wrecked.</i></p><p> </p><p>  <i>Bonus points for Eames using his pet names sincerely in his panic, he really can't stand to see Arthur broken.</i></p><p> </p><p><i>BUT: Arthur is NOT an easy man to break. Please keep him unwimpy as possible. </i> And that does basically sum it up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Dig, Lazarus, Dig

**Author's Note:**

> Please heed the warnings, this is pretty graphic, so if you're claustrophobic or entomophobic (fear of bugs) then please skip this!

The last thing Arthur had said was, "I think I'm onto something here, Eames. I'll call you tomorrow." And then he hadn't called, and that, of all things, was not like Arthur.

Eames had tried to ring him five times that night. The next morning dawned cold and brittle, and Arthur still had not called.

Finally becoming nervous enough, Eames had broken down and called Cobb. Maybe Arthur had needed to hide out, some old place that pre-dated his even knowing who Arthur was. Somewhere that Cobb might know, however.

Cobb, it turned out, was as in the dark as Eames was.

Desperate, he went to the flat that Arthur had been renting. He'd been to it before, during this job. When he saw Arthur's rented car still parked there, his insides went hot and weak. He broke into a run, fidgeting on his keyring for the key to the flat. He needn't have. The door was open.

Eames drew his gun. Years of training, on and off the field, had prepared him for situations like these. He pushed the door open hard, hoping to knock out whoever might have been behind it. Aimed his gun, his eyes wide open, neurons firing twice the normal speed, fingers ready to pull the trigger. His practiced eyes took in everything at once.

Scuff marks, overturned chair, throw rug askew, and the pile of fire-wood knocked over, with one heavy-looking log thrown further away. Arthur's Glock lay on the hardwood floor. And on the crease of the door-hinge, four streaks of blood announced their violence. He touched them. They were dry.

His hands were no longer shaking as he entered the scene. His brain repeated one thought: _What would Arthur do, what would Arthur do?_

Arthur would begin the search at the last possible lead. Eames looked to Arthur's laptop, which was on the table in front of the sofa. It stood open, in sleep mode, as if it had been the last thing he touched. His GPS lay on the sofa.

He woke it and checked Arthur's browser history. He had location-searched an old silo. 

"Fuck," Eames said. 

On his way out, Eames grabbed the GPS and Arthur's Glock. He stashed both guns―his into the holster, Arthur's into his jacket--swept the door shut behind him, got into his car and drove.

It was a hell of a drive, and he called Cobb on the way. He made a valiant attempt to keep his voice steady.

"I believe Arthur is in some serious trouble," he said.

"Oh shit, fuck," Cobb hissed. "What are you, what can I, what should we...?"

 _When did you forget how to be a criminal, Cobb?_ Eames thought, angry, paranoid and aware that the thought was unreasonable and unfair.

"Nothing," he said. "I've got it. Call you when I know more."

He hung up, feeling utterly alone.

It was dark by the time Arthur's GPS (with the British voice,) led him to his last ( _final_ ) search. He erased that thought as quickly and efficiently as he could. Years of lucid dreaming had allowed him that ability.

It was full dark now, but the near-full moon lit his way well enough.

Parking the car a fair distance away, he jogged around the back of the looming silo, suspecting that they had Arthur in there somewhere, and were using the abandoned structure as some kind of primitive interrogation room. There was an entrance around the back. Eames steeled himself to go in. He knew he'd be going up against a good many thugs, but it wasn't the first time. And Arthur would do it for him, in the same place. And if Arthur wasn't already totally incapacitated ( _dead_ , whispered his traitorous mind,) then they would still be a two-man team. He'd never known Arthur to back down. Not ever, not under any circumstances, and not from anything.

He was about to release the latch on the silo door, or shoot the lock off if he had to, when a prickling sensation compelled him to look over his shoulder. His hair stood on end; that feeling of being watched, or that there was something behind him that he needed to see. He reached for his gun.

There was no one behind him. But there was a shape, one that stood out in silhouette against the cold moonlight, propped against a tree. His heart dropped at the sight of it and he knew. Knew with his gut.

A shovel.

He ran for it, using shadows as cover, and grabbed it up, casting his eyes about furiously, desperately. He pushed through some low-lying brush and emerged in a field.

Beyond the thin cover of brush lay a wasteland of rocks and dirt. The rocks were haphazard, as if they'd been overturned. The dirt, though. That had more of a pattern. There were mounds of it, some old, some fresh. A fucking graveyard.

_Jesus Christ, which one, which one..._

Two looked new and he didn't have the time to get to both.

"Arthur, where are you?" he whispered into the night. "Arthur, help me here. Please."

Maybe it was years of dream-sharing, or maybe it was some old connection that he had forged with his most frequent teammates, or maybe it was that his instinct was as good as he bragged it was. It didn't matter why. He felt it. Felt _him._

So he went to one of those fresh mounds of dirt, got to one knee, and started shoveling. Terrified the whole time of what he might find beneath.

"Arthur, Arthur," he said, not yelling, not loud enough―he hoped―to raise an alarm.

The earth was soft and pliant, not yet frozen but it soon would be. His hands were freezing, almost numb. He got about three feet down, a section about two feet wide and maybe four long, when the dirt shifted softly beneath the shovel. He waited to strike the wood top of some makeshift coffin.

The dirt shifted again, and again, and again, as if it was moving. Where was the fucking top of this coffin? These people had done this before, to others; they had put him the entire six feet...

The thought made him have to stifle a moan of terror. _Oh, darling, please be alive, please be sane._

Four feet down and he thought he'd have to soon start pounding away at the top of a coffin, trying to carefully break it without hurting Arthur.

He never struck anything. 

Eames cried out, something primal, and fell back as a hand shot up out of the earth, reaching skyward in the moonlight.

"Oh fuck, oh Jesus, god, _fuck_ ," he panted, quickly getting to his knees and digging with one hand now, while the other gripped onto Arthur's wrist. He'd know those hands anywhere. He felt vaguely that he was sweating in the frigid cold, or maybe crying, and somewhere in the back of his mind he noted that Arthur's cold, white fingers were clutching something, something that didn't make sense...

_A pen, why's he holding a pen..._

...and just as quickly, _My god, he's digging his way out, digging his way out with a pen, a fucking pen..._

They had put him under the entire six feet. Eames was pulling his arm out of perhaps four. How long had he been down there, creating tunnels of oxygen, or escape? It didn't bear thinking about.

His digging hand finally came in contact with fabric, with movement, with life, and he let go of Arthur's hand and dug with both, clawing at the dirt, trying to get his arms under and around Arthur, trying to find his fucking _face_ in all of this.

Floodlights from around the silo burned away the dark and Eames shielded his eyes and held back a shout of alarm. 

This was some deep shit and he had run out of time. He grabbed onto Arthur's wrist with both hands and pulled, not caring if he wrenched his shoulder free in the socket; it beat having the two of them buried alive here.

The dirt fell away and Arthur used his other hand to claw himself out. He was on his knees; he had kicked and squirmed and struggled his way to this position, likely for hours. His eyes were shut tight but his mouth was open in a silent scream, surrounded by the dirt that clung to him. He dragged in a harsh breath and released it in a coughing, rending cry.

The door to the silo opened with a bang. "There!" came a shout from behind it.

With one arm around Arthur's back, Eames hauled him up to his feet and with his other hand, he pulled his gun. Two men made their way through the low brush.

Eames fired twice, getting one in the head and the other in the chest.

Running on nothing more than primal instinct and adrenaline, he felt something tear in his arm as he pulled Arthur free of the makeshift grave. There was something around Arthur's neck, something that he couldn't identify right away but nonetheless horrified him.

More men poured out of the silo door and cut through the brush, drawing their guns. Three of them. They weren't quiet about it.

Eames fired again. To his shock, Arthur reached into Eames's jacket and retrieved his Glock. He leaned most of his weight against Eames, sagging against him as he tried to take aim. His hand shook like mad and he fired wildly into the night.

"I've got it," Eames said, and fired off two more shots. One guy got it in the throat, and fell, gurgling but still alive. One got it in the thigh and the third got it in the side of the head.

"Come on," Eames said, pulling Arthur alongside him.

Arthur jerked away from him. For a moment Eames thought he was going to fall, and went to catch him, but Arthur didn't fall. He leaned over with his hands on his knees and vomited something black - another thought that Eames did not want to entertain but couldn't help knowing.

It was dirt, coming out of him.

"Oh fuck, Arthur, Jesus..."

Arthur stumbled away from him and walked, unsteadily, like a zombie risen from the grave, to the three writhing forms on the ground: Eames's missed shots. He hovered over them, swaying.

"Did you...think I...would... stay... _down..._ " he rasped. It didn't sound like a question. Then he fired three shots of his own. Blood splattered up onto his face and he didn't seem to notice. He fixated on one of the men and fired again, and again and again. He fired until the Glock clicked empty. Then he fell to his knees and kept firing.

"Arthur," Eames said, as softly as he could behind him. 

Arthur swung around and aimed the empty gun at Eames, before lowering it again. In the harsh glare of the floodlights, he looked like the walking dead: smeared in dirt and filth, splattered in blood. The thing around his neck, Eames saw, was the remnant of a black plastic bag that had been tied there. His wrists were bloody, with deep, clean cuts around the backs of both of them. Zip-tie, Eames knew from experience.

"Oh, fuck me dead," Eames said, stunned.

Arthur lowered the gun and grinned – a terrible, frightening grin, his eyes empty and hunted. "You almost... had to... fuck me... de--"

"Stop talking," Eames said, striding up to him. He slipped his arm around Arthur's back and hauled him to his feet. 

"Ha ha!" Arthur laughed. The sound of it was cold, broken, and it sent a shiver all over Eames's body. 

Then Arthur turned the other way and retched again, more dirt and bile.

"Hospital," Eames said.

Arthur clutched his coat, his hands like ice, and looked up from his bent position. His eyes looked black, ringed in bruises. "No."

"Yes."

" _No._ I took out..." He stopped for a shallow, coarse breath. "Five of..." Breath. "Those fucks." Breath. "Hospital... crawling with..." He doubled over, coughing.

"You didn't go quietly, you injured five of them on your way out, they are under high security in the local hospital."

Arthur's answer was a quick nod of his head, and then to double over, almost falling before Eames caught him.

"Shit."

He took Arthur to the car as quickly as he could without jarring him too much. When they got to the car, Arthur tried to open the driver's side and made as if he was looking in his pocket for his car keys. Somehow, this scared Eames more than the vomiting and the fact that he had just dug him up.

"Arthur," he said, giving him a light shake by the upper arm. "For godsake man, stay with me."

"Uhh..." Arthur said. His eyes rolled back first, then his head, then his knees went. Eames caught him, dragged him around to the other side, and put him into the passenger seat.

By the time he got to the driver's side, his hand was shaking so badly he had a hard time keying the ignition. Arthur chose then to rouse himself, and he stared around wildly, his breath rattling, hands reaching at nothing.

"Right here, Arthur," Eames said. 

Arthur nodded, swallowed thickly and fumbled for his seat-belt. Somehow, this broke Eames's heart. Trust Arthur to think Safety First after having been buried alive for however long, and _fuck_ he wanted to kill those men all over again. He hated killing, it made him feel sick for weeks, but in this case he'd do it twice or thrice. He reached across Arthur and pulled the seatbelt across him, clicking it into place.

"Can't breathe," Arthur said, twisting.

"Shh."

"Don't... fucking... shush me."

"Sorry, my darling. We're going to be leaving rather quickly; I need you to stay buckled for now. Arthur, do they know of me? Where I'm staying?"

A sharp, negative shake of his head.

 _Good._ He started the car and peeled out. He sped away, and didn't turn the beams on until they were well away from the silo.

The whole way to Eames's place, Arthur coughed, struggled, twisted. Slept and woke, or something in between. Twice Eames had to pull over to let him vomit out the door. Eames didn't think, didn't speak, and barely breathed the whole way, listening closely to Arthur's uneven breathing, halfway cursing him for putting five men into the hospital so that he could not now go there himself. And halfway respecting him anew. Certainly people fucked with Arthur, and tonight proved it more than any other time. But no one had ever walked away from it.

The digital clock read 1:23 AM when Eames pulled up to his flat, and Arthur was beyond waking or walking. Eames carried him in his arms, Arthur's head dangling over the crook of his elbow. He was completely non-responsive when he got him into the living room, and then the panic hit. Eames lowered him onto the couch and shook him hard, yelling "Arthur, _Arthur!_ " To lose him now, after all of this, how could he have been so stupid, Arthur could have been dying in the car, bleeding out somewhere the entire time.

"Oh, darling, please don't do this, Arthur!"

He reached for his phone to dial emergency services. Arthur's ice-cold hand stilled him. Eames turned to see him twisting, trying to turn onto his side. The whites of his eyes shone in the dim light that came from the kitchen.

"Can't..." Arthur wheezed. He turned himself over and slid to the floor, on his knees. He clutched his chest and his throat, trying to suck in enough air, coughing and gasping. "Water," he managed. 

Eames, exhausted and shaking but not knowing what else to do, lifted him again and took him into the bathroom. He set him down on the floor and filled a cup of water from the sink, then turned on the shower, warm but not too hot.

Arthur drank, stumbled to his feet, and threw it all back up into the sink. Not only dirt this time, but blood onto the white porcelain. From his lips or lungs, Eames didn't know. He could have pneumonia. Eames turned him around and looked in his face, as difficult as it was to do. His lips were tinged blue. He was staring somewhere into the distance with that same hunted look as before. 

"You're all right," Eames said, using his hands to gently wipe at the smudges of filth. It did little to clean him up. "Mind me now, Arthur. You've got to get cleaned off, yeah? To see if you're hurt anywhere else."

"Always... getting me... naked." He smiled. His teeth were red. 

Eames looked away. "That's right, pet."

"I killed them." He sounded shocky and faint.

"You did." He began unbuttoning Arthur's shirt, then thought _fuck it_ and ripped it off him. Arthur drew back. His chest was covered in bruises, ringed in black. "Your ribs are broken."

"Baseball bat. You should see..."

"The other guy, I know," Eames said, keeping his voice light, trying not to let it tremble, or let his fingers shake as he removed Arthur's shoes and socks and then got down to getting him out of his pants.

An earthworm slithered over his fingers when he got down to Arthur's underclothes. Eames made a Herculean effort not to draw back, not to fucking bolt then and there. 

"I broke his... face... skull. Eames. Ha. Fuck it's cold."

"We'll get that fixed." He looked away when he removed his underclothes, afraid of what he might find. Specifically _not_ looking at naked Arthur – that was a first. 

"While you're... down there," Arthur said. "Ha."

"Arthur, the creepy laughing is putting me off, to be honest."

He tried to say it lightly, but then Arthur started to shiver, and the shiver turned into a quake, and just as quickly his knees were giving out again as full-body tremors wracked him. He pitched forward.

Not knowing what else to do, Eames picked him up and put him under the warm, running water of the shower. Arthur jerked up straight, his arms flinging wildly, hands gripping at the air. Eames leaned in with him, still in his clothes, soaking his shirt. He thought then he should have taken it off, but now it was too late; he was holding Arthur up, bracing him on his arm. 

Soil and blood ran down his body, turning the water black. Eames scooped up a few handfuls of water and poured them over Arthur's head. Two beetles and a maggot slid over Arthur's shoulder, onto Eames's shirt, and then washed down the drain. There were tiny, prickled marks here and there on Arthur's skin. Mandible-marks.

Eames turned his head away with a helpless groan. 

"Shh," Arthur said, petting Eames's hair with shaking fingers. "Just bugs."

Eames laughed in spite of himself. Arthur galled and annoyed him much of the time, but he couldn't deny that he loved this ridiculous fucker like burning.

"I can't stand... have to sit. Cold, freezing." He slid down the tile, and Eames helped him fall gently until he was sitting.

When most of the dirt and blood were gone, he plugged the drain and filled the tub with warm water. "Don't go anywhere," he instructed Arthur, as he stripped off his own shirt. "And don't drown, for fucksake."

"Come in with me," Arthur murmured.

"No; you're too weak."

"Afraid of my bug friends. Ha."

"Arthur, you're terrifying me." Eames kneeled next to the tub and turned Arthur's face toward him. "Do you understand that? You're delirious, you're sick, you're not yourself and you are terrifying me. I want you to make sense. I thought we'd lose you. I'm still afraid, you see."

"Sorry," Arthur said. He struggled to keep his eyes open but they slipped shut. A second later, they flew open again, mad with terror. His arms flailed out, sloshing water everywhere as he tried to leap free of the confinement.

"Still here," Eames said. 

"Totem," Arthur gasped. "My pocket."

"Of course. Pocket of your trousers, darling?"

Arthur nodded, making a weak, forward-circling motion with his finger, so like his usual, peevish _Hurry the fuck up_ gesture that Eames felt slightly comforted. 

He handed him his filthy trousers and turned away while Arthur dug into a sewn-in pocket. He wanted to offer him help, but that would defeat the purpose.

"I can't get it out," Arthur said. "Please. Just this once."

"I shouldn't."

"I trust you."

Eames turned back, and found that he was unable to watch Arthur, shivering with cold and need, fumble at his pocket for something he desperately needed. He understood what Arthur was giving him—the power—but perhaps Arthur didn't. But he gently took the wet trousers out of his hand and retrieved the red die. It might not have felt any different to anyone else, but his sensitive fingers, those of a skilled gambler and forger, perceived the weight of it right away. He dropped it into Arthur's hand.

"Thanks," Arthur breathed, closing his hand around it. "I'm cold."

"I'll help you out of the water. First I've got to get you something to wear. I've got a robe, if that's all right?"

Arthur nodded.

"Then stay here, and please don't drown in my absence."

He hurried as much as possible, darting into his room for his warmest robe (and he had quite a few; Eames was a self-professed comfort whore,) and grabbed fresh clothes for himself, too. His clothes stank of dirt and fear. 

By the time he got back, Arthur had gotten himself out of the tub and stood shivering in front of the mirror, drinking another glass of water. He drank some, spit the rest, and repeated it.

 _You shouldn't be standing,_ was what Eames wanted to say, but he felt to glad that Arthur was able to stand at all. Instead he said, "I've got a spare toothbrush. Can I trust you to not collapse if I have a quick wash?"

"Do my best," Arthur said. He leaned forward and pressed his cheek against the mirror, wracked by visible chills. His hair stood on end and goosebumps covered his skin.

Eames slipped the robe over his back. "Sit a minute."

Arthur nodded, then once again was sick into the sink. Less dirt, less blood, more bile. Eames held his wet hair back from his face because he didn't know what else to do.

"Go on," Arthur said, his voice choked. "I got this."

Never having felt less sexy while stripping off in front of Arthur, Eames nevertheless did so. As he got into the shower, he had to squeeze his eyes shut to stop seeing the beetles and maggots sliding down the porcelain. He bathed quickly, as Arthur brushed his teeth and then sagged down against the wall, cradling his head in his palms.

"Almost done," Eames said.

Arthur didn't reply.

Afterwards, he took Arthur to bed, though not in the sense that he often did when they worked together. 

"You've got to tell me, Arthur," he said as he gently pushed him back, "if anything hurts, if you're in shock, real shock I mean, or if you – if you feel you need the hospital, because I will risk it. You know that."

Arthur shook his head. "Pitcher of water and a bucket." He coughed, and curled onto his side. "That's all."

When Eames did as Arthur had requested, he got into bed facing him, slipped his hands into the voluminous robe, and ran his fingers along his spine, his ribs. Arthur squirmed.

"Lie still," Eames instructed.

"Not now, asshole," Arthur muttered.

"I'm checking for injury. Do as you're told." Though he couldn't help a small smile. 

He pressed around his kidneys, around his abdomen, waiting for any signs of pain. Arthur was extremely tolerant to pain but he trusted him to be honest, and anyway by this time he was hyper-sensitized and probably could not help an outward reaction. Easing the pressure, he ran his fingers through his hair and prodded his skull for any lumps or bumps. His chest didn't unclench until he'd convinced himself that there was no head injury. 

The hiss of pain came when Eames pressed against his ribs in the front. Nothing shifted or ground around; they were cracked, likely. Painful but not deadly.

Then he took his arms and hands and inspected them. The blood had been washed away, but pressure-lacerations still lined his wrists.

"Nail clipper," Arthur said.

"What?" Eames was afraid he was losing him to delirium again.

"Zip-tie. But I keep a nail clipper."

Eames couldn't stop the laugh from escaping. "Of course you do."

"I got it out of my back pocket, took forever. Clipped the zip-tie. Then I...dug... the dirt wasn't too heavy but. By the time I got to the plastic." His breath sped up. "Numb. Everything."

"You got yourself upright," Eames said. "Which is quite beyond amazing. And here you are now."

"Like swimming. Underwater. For hours." He gasped in another deep breath. "Used the pen like a straw, to breathe." 

"Well, you're breathing now," Eames said. 

"I killed one with the bat before they... I took it from him, turned it on him. Rage."

"Self defense," Eames said.

"Rage. Could have used the time." Breath. "To escape."

"It's done."

Arthur nodded. "Broke another guy's arm over my knee. Snap. Ha ha."

That dead laugh gave Eames another shiver. 

"Gouged an eye. Crushed a windpipe." Breath. "There was more. It was fast."

"You don't have to tell me."

"I want you to know."

"I see. How long, do you think?"

He saw Arthur's brow furrow in thought as he shook his head. "Don't know. Right after I called you they grabbed me."

 _Two days ago, evening_ Eames calculated. It had taken him around 40 minutes to find the silo. Probably a few hours while they worked him over. He'd have to been underground for at least half a day.

His hands were still inside Arthur's robe, and he gave his arm a light squeeze. "You're freezing."

"Cold underground."

It was difficult for him to not pull him close and crush him; not only because it was Arthur, either - his difficult, fastidious, irritating, ridiculously brave Arthur. He supposed he'd want to comfort anyone. "I'm not sure if I should, you know. Hold you."

"I'm not a cuddler."

"For warmth."

"Oh. Then why not?"

"I don't want to, to make you feel smothered, I suppose."

"I can tell the difference between a human body and five feet of dirt." He tried for a light tone, but his shuddered as he said it.

 _For now,_ Eames thought, pulling him close, gently so as not to jar the broken ribs. _For now._

He was correct, as during the night Arthur did, on three occasions, throw him off screaming, and one separate occasion in which he woke quietly and then hyperventilated for five minutes while Eames sat with him, trying to talk him down, coaxing him to drink water. Eventually he made himself pass out again.

By morning light, Eames did another once-over check of him while he slept. His lips were no longer blue, but pale, cracked dry and split. Bruises lined his eyes, covered his chest and thighs. A laceration marked his cheek, from the corner of his eye to the corner of his lip; Eames thought it could have been from the pen he'd been trying to breathe through.

The memory of bullets, his bullets, thudding into warm, heavy bodies, came back to him. The way they had fallen, gurgled and writhed. He wanted to return to the silo and kill them over and over again, for nothing compared to the memory of Arthur on his knees, his bloody, vacant smile as he emptied his clip into his tormentors. Nothing compared to his frozen hand reaching up from beneath the ground, and certainly nothing compared to the bugs that had been crawling over him while he struggled, and after, in the shower.

Whatever it must be like to have to dig out of your own grave, Eames was sure he couldn't imagine. Last night had been awful enough for him, and he ached to the marrow of his bones, feeling exhausted, weighed down, and for once, feeling his age. But for Arthur. For Arthur, what would he endure after this? For the rest of his life?

He leaned down and kissed Arthur's forehead and temple, and slipped his fingers through his curls – intimate gestures that he would not be allowed if Arthur were awake. Those impatient fingers would shove him away, slatted eyes would glance at him in amusement and annoyance all at once.

And normally, he never felt such urges either. He liked Arthur, loved him maybe, in the way that he loved most people he fell into bed with on a semi-regular basis, and...

Who was he kidding, though? Arthur was the only "semi-regular" for him these days. Work tied him up, most of the time, and who else could he trust? So perhaps Arthur was a bit special for him.

"Stop," Arthur said, stirring from sleep and brushing his hand away. "I'm fine."

"I don't quite believe you," Eames said, "though I'm sure you're on your way to it." 

"You're evaluating me."

"I'm concerned, Arthur. You had a rough night, in case you've forgotten that little detail."

Gingerly, Arthur turned onto his other side, away from Eames. He took a shuddery breath and said, "Look. I got caught. It's part of the job. I feel like shit. But I'll get over it. Eventually."

"I know you will. But until then."

"Until then I'll ask you to stay. If you can. Difficult, to be alone for a while. Post traumatic stress, probably." He said it clinically, as if he were diagnosing someone else, as if it was just something some other person would have to cope with.

"Of course I'l stay; I'm not that much of a dick."

"Truth is, you're not really a dick at all. And you did save me."

"You were well on your way to digging yourself out."

Arthur's quick intake of breath at the phrase gave him pause. "I might have. Then they would have shot me."

"I likely tripped the alarm."

Arthur huffed out a breath, sounding more annoyed than afraid. "And I would have tripped it escaping. Who cares. I'm here."

"Yes." Eames leaned down behind him and draped an arm over him.

"God, I don't need to be cuddled," Arthur said, but he made no move to throw him off.

"I do." He reached up and stroked Arthur's hair back. "You're quite warm. Feverish, I think."

"You're my nurse now?"

"Yes."

"Ha."

"Don't laugh." _Don't laugh like that,_ Eames thought, remembering Arthur's shocky, empty laughter from the night before. _I never want to hear it again._ "You'll hurt my feelings. Please just let me, Arthur. I was terrified for you. And, hello, for me. Getting shot at like that."

Arthur lifted his hand (still shaking,) to Eames's wrist, tugging his stroking fingers away from his hair.

"Fine," Eames sighed.

Arthur pressed his cracked lips to the center of Eames's palm, and held them there for a long time. Then he released the breath he'd been holding in a shaky sigh and said, "But don't go. Yet."

"Of course not," Eames said. 

The vague morning light, the quiet chill of the morning, and the press of Arthur's back against his chest did a lot to banish from his mind the previous night's images: the shovel, the gunfire, the blood, dirt and worms. Didn't manage to banish them completely, but it offered a start.

"Just for now," Arthur said.

"Of course." He resumed his gentle stroking of Arthur's still-damp hair. "Of course."

**Author's Note:**

> A/N: I very much hope I did justice to this prompt. I saw some amazing, mind-blowing fills, and to those I bow down. At the end of the day (no, literally, at the end of the day: like, I wrote this in the hour before bed,) I wanted to have a go, too.
> 
> Mostly, I tried to keep Arthur a total BAMF but this is difficult when you've just buried a character alive. Realistically, I think there'd be some repercussions. And broken!Arthur is like my biggest kink. 
> 
> He's been my whipping-boy for a while, and I think I'm done hurting him for now. Next fic will be more action-adventure and fun.
> 
> Awesome, spooky prompt, thank you anon! Hope this pleases you, and maybe some others. :D


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